Zendesk vs Intercom: the ultimate comparison by Ana Khlystova HelpCrunch
Enterprise help desks provide features like asset and account management, knowledge bases, collaboration tools for IT tech support, and no (or very high) limits on users. They’re an ideal option for enterprises that need to support employees and customers. Keep in mind that Salesforce can be intricate, requiring a longer learning curve for first-time users. Salesforce isn’t solely dedicated to customer experience (CX), providing a comprehensive suite for sales and marketing.
Zendesk is designed with the agent in mind, delivering a modern, intuitive experience. The customizable Zendesk Agent Workspace enables reps to work within a single browser tab with one-click navigation across any channel. Intercom, on the other hand, can be a complicated system, creating a steep learning curve for new users.
Zendesk vs Intercom: customer support
It also includes extensive integrations with over 350 CRM, email, ticketing, and reporting tools. The platform is recognized for its ability to resolve a significant portion of common questions automatically, ensuring faster response times. It is great to have CRM functionality inside your customer service platform because it helps maintain great customer experiences by storing all past customer engagements and conversation histories. This method helps offer more personalized support as well as get faster response and resolution times.
There is automatic email archiving and incoming email authentication. For those of you who have been waiting for the big showdown between these two customer support heavyweights, we are glad to present the ultimate Zendesk vs Intercom comparison article. Intercom has more customization features for features like bots, themes, triggers, and funnels.
In this article, we comprehensively do a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom, examining their key features, benefits, and industry use cases. By exploring their distinct offerings, we aim to assist businesses in making informed decisions when selecting a customer service platform. Zendesk’s user face is quite intuitive and easy to use, allowing customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Additionally, the platform allows users to customize their experience by setting up automation workflows, creating ticket rules, and utilizing analytics. Moreover, for users who require more dedicated and personalized support, Zendesk charges an additional premium. These premium support services can range in cost, typically between $1,500 and $2,800.
This additional cost can be a considerable factor for businesses to consider when evaluating their customer support needs against their budget constraints. The strength of Zendesk’s UI lies in its structured and comprehensive environment, adept at managing numerous customer interactions and integrating various channels seamlessly. However, compared to the more contemporary designs like Intercom’s, Zendesk’s UI may appear outdated, particularly in aspects such as chat widget and customization options.
The difference in prices between plans is so significant because of the features each of them provides. Honestly, when it comes to Zendesk, it is not the most modern tool out there. What can be really inconvenient about Zendesk, though is how their tools integrate with each other when you need to use them simultaneously. What really struck me though is that people seemed to like Zendesk more.
Here are a few key features to look for when comparing help desk software. If that’s not detailed enough, then surely their visitor browsing details will leave you surprised. Zendesk maps out each activity a visitor performs on your website. This enables your operators to understand visitor intent faster and provide them with a personalized experience. There is also an opinion that Zendesk’s interface and design are slightly less convenient in comparison to Intercom’s, which provides a more streamlined user interface. Additional payment per active user or seat depends on a chosen service and a plan.
Zendesk features include ticketing, workflow automation, knowledge base, and omnichannel support, making it a comprehensive solution for help desk operations. Our software enables businesses to streamline customer interactions and enhance overall support processes. The Freshworks cloud-based help desk tool, Freshdesk, serves as a centralized platform for support teams to manage and respond to customer requests. Its ticketing system consolidates requests from various channels into a shared team inbox.
Can I use both Zendesk and Intercom?
You can contact the sales team if you’re just looking around, but you will not receive decent customer support unless you buy their service. Overall, Zendesk empowers businesses to deliver exceptional customer support experiences across channels, making it a popular choice for enhancing support operations. When it comes to which company is the better fit for your business, there’s no clear answer. It really depends on what features you need and what type of customer service strategy you plan to implement.
There’s plenty of information about customer support and ticketing software options. Read these resources to learn more about why users choose Zendesk vs Intercom. Intercom is ideal for personalized messaging, while Zendesk offers robust ticket management and self-service options. Zendesk has a help center that is open to all to find out answers to common questions.
Existing customers have complained consistently about how they aren’t available at the right time to offer support to customers. There are even instances where customers don’t receive the first response in more than seven days. There are four different subscription packages you can choose from, all of which also have Essential, Pro, and Premium options for businesses of different sizes. You’d need to chat with Intercom sales team for get the costs for the Premium subscription, though.
This not only increases customer satisfaction but also reduces operational costs. It’s no secret that Zendesk is the G.O.A.T. of help desk software. Designed to enhance the employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX), our help desk software is the best of both worlds.
To automate operations and reduce your employees’ workload, it is critical that customer support systems allow integration with other products. This enables organizations to work more efficiently and easily integrate their software without having to alter their present business processes. Simplicity is an important Chat GPT consideration when selecting the best customer service software. Having easy-to-use software is far more controllable and saves time whether you’re a tiny and growing business or a massive multinational. Compared to Zendesk and Intercom, Helpwise offers competitive and transparent pricing plans.
LiveAgent is a help desk software that helps customer support teams manage inquiries across multiple communication channels. Its ticketing system supports channels like phone, email, live chat, knowledge base, and social media, routing tickets into a shared team inbox. Its chat software allows agents to provide live support and features a real-time typing view so support agents can see what the customer is typing before they hit send. Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk software that assists businesses with customer support operations. The platform offers a ticketing system, allowing users to create, categorize, and prioritize support tickets. Zoho Desk features a knowledge base so users have access to self-service resources.
Case Status, Mobile Client Portal and Messaging App, Raises $5M Series B, For Total Raise of $11M – LawSites
Case Status, Mobile Client Portal and Messaging App, Raises $5M Series B, For Total Raise of $11M.
Posted: Mon, 05 Dec 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Read our comprehensive guide to help desk software so you can find the right fit for your business. Again, Zendesk has surpassed the number of reviewers https://chat.openai.com/ when compared to Intercom. Some of the highly-rated features include ticket creation user experience, email to case, and live chat reporting.
On the other hand, Intercom is generally praised for its support features, despite facing challenges with its AI chatbot and the complexity of its help articles. Chatbots are automated customer support tools that can assist with low-level ticket triage and ticket routing in real-time. How easy it is to program a chatbot and how effective a chatbot is at assisting human reps is an important factor for this category. The highlight of Zendesk’s ticketing software is its omnichannel-ality (omnichannality?).
What are the differences between Intercom and Zendesk?
You can even save custom dashboards for a more tailored reporting experience. All customer questions, be it via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, are landing in one dashboard, where your agents can solve them quickly and efficiently. It guarantees continuous omnichannel support that meets customer expectations. Intercom is an all-in-one solution, and compared to Zendesk, Intercom has a less intuitive design and can be complicated for new users to learn. It also offers a confusing pricing structure and fewer integrations, making it less scalable and cost-effective. Customer expectations are already high, but with the rise of AI, customers are expecting even more.
Zendesk is designed to fit your business needs whether you’re a fast-growing startup or a well-established company. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.
At the same time, they both provide great and easy user onboarding. Yes, you can integrate the Intercom solution into your Zendesk account. It will allow you to leverage some Intercom capabilities while keeping your account at the time-tested platform.
In the category of customer support, Zendesk appears to be just slightly better than Intercom based on the availability of regular service and response times. However, it is possible Intercom’s support is superior at the premium level. There are 3 Basic support plans at $19, $49 and $99 per user per month billed annually, and 5 Suite plans at $49, $79, $99, $150, and $215 per user per month billed annually. Overall, I actually liked Zendesk’s user experience better than Intercom’s in terms of its messaging dashboard.
If you thought Zendesk’s pricing was confusing, let me introduce you to Intercom’s pricing. It’s virtually impossible to predict what you’re going to pay for Intercom at end of the day. You’d probably want to know how much it costs to get Zendesk or Intercom for your business, so let’s talk money now. But it’s designed and crafted so well that I can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s highly customizable, so you can adjust it according to your website or product’s style.
While both Zendesk and Intercom are great and robust platforms, none of them are able to provide you with the same value Messagely gives you at such an affordable price. You can also follow up with customers after they have left the chat and qualify them based on your answers. Chat agents also get a comprehensive look at their entire customer’s journey, so they will have a better idea of what your customers need, without needing to ask many questions. Since Intercom is so intuitive, the time you’ll need to spend training new users on how to interact with the platform is greatly reduced.
Although Zendesk isn’t hard to use, it’s not a perfectly smooth experience either. Users report feeling as though the interface is outdated and cluttered and complain about how long it takes to set up new features and customize existing ones. Then, you can begin filling in details such as your account’s name and icon and your agents’ profiles and security features. Zendesk has over 150,000 customer accounts from 160 countries and territories. They have offices all around the world including countries such as Mexico City, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Singapore, São Paulo, London, and Dublin. Many users complain that Intercom’s help is unavailable the majority of the time, forcing them to repeatedly ask the same question to a bot.
Intercom’s UI excels in modern design and intuitive functionality, particularly noted for its real-time messaging and advanced features. It is tailored for automation and quick access to insights, offering a user-friendly experience. Nevertheless, the platform’s support consistency can be a concern, and the unpredictable pricing structure might lead to increased costs for larger organizations. Intercom’s solution aims to streamline high-volume ticket influx and provide personalized, conversational support.
Intercom or Zendesk: Help desk and ticketing
Intercom, on the other hand, was built for business messaging, so communication is one of their strong suits. Combine that with their prowess in automation and sales solutions, and you’ve got a really strong product that can handle myriad customer relationship needs. I tested both options (using Zendesk’s Suite Professional trial and Intercom’s Support trial) and found clearly defined differences between the two. Here’s what you need to know about Zendesk vs. Intercom as customer support and relationship management tools.
- Now that we’ve covered a bit of background on both Zendesk and Intercom, let’s dive into the features each platform offers.
- For example, Zendesk offers expertise and guidance to help you deploy the software seamlessly and works with you so you can get the most value out of it.
- In this article, we comprehensively do a comparison of Zendesk vs Intercom, examining their key features, benefits, and industry use cases.
- In this paragraph, let’s explain some common issues that users usually ask about when choosing between Zendesk and Intercom platforms.
Intercom, on the other hand, is ideal for those focusing on CRM capabilities and personalized customer interactions. One more thing to add, there are ways to integrate Intercom to Zendesk. Visit either of their app marketplaces and look up the Intercom Zendesk integration.
Features like reporting and analytics across channels, customizable workflows, and a single, unified view help your team provide top-tier, personalized service at scale. AI and chatbots can also provide quick and convenient 24/7 customer support on your messaging channels even when your agents are off the clock. HubSpot Service Hub offers ticket routing and automation features that allow your team to automate tasks. The platform also automatically creates tickets when a customer submits a form, email, or chat. HubSpot Service Hub provides a single dashboard that lets your support team log, organize, and track all customer issues in one place. Agents can view customer data, ticket status, queue location, and how long it took to resolve an issue.
What’s more, it helps its clients build an integrated community forum and help center to improve the support experience in real-time. Welcome to another blog post that helps you gauge which live chat solution is compatible with your customer support needs. And in this post, we will analyze two popular names in the SaaS industry – Intercom & Zendesk.
Intercom has a very robust advanced chatbot set of tools for your business needs. There is a conversation routing bot, an operator bot, a lead qualification bot, and an article-suggesting bot, among others. It is also not too difficult to program your own bot rules using Intercon’s system.
A messenger platform that helps engage customers on your website or app. It provides bots and chats automation features to make communication with clients more efficient. As zendesk vs intercom any free tool, the functionalities there are quite limited, but nevertheless. If you’re a really small business or a startup, you can benefit big time from such free tools.
It can automatically suggest your customer relevant articles reducing the workload for your support agents. On one hand, Zendesk offers a great many features, way more than Intercom, but it lacks in-app messenger and email marketing tools. On the other hand, Intercom has all its (fewer) tools and features integrated with each other way better, which makes your experience with the tool as smooth as silk. For basic chat and messaging, Intercom charges a flat fee of $39 per month for its basic plan with one user and $99 per month for its team plan with up to 5 users. If you want automated options, Intercom starts at either $499 or $999 per month for up to ten users, depending on the level of automation you’re looking for. Its sales CRM software starts at $19 per month per user, but you’ll have to pay $49 to get Zapier integrations and $99 for Hubspot integrations.
This could impact user experience and efficiency for new users grappling with its complexity. Understanding the unique attributes of Zendesk and Intercom is crucial in this comparison. Zendesk is renowned for its comprehensive range of functionalities, including advanced email ticketing, live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base. Its ability to seamlessly integrate with various applications further amplifies its versatility. A customer service department is only as good as its support team members, and these highly-prized employees need to rely on one another.
Its AI Chatbot, Fin, is particularly noted for handling complex queries efficiently. This exploration aims to provide a detailed comparison, aiding businesses in making an informed decision that aligns with their customer service goals. Both Zendesk and Intercom offer robust solutions, but the choice ultimately depends on specific business needs. While both platforms have a significant presence in the industry, they cater to varying business requirements. Zendesk, with its extensive toolkit, is often preferred by businesses seeking an all-encompassing customer support solution. One place Intercom really shines as a standalone CRM is its data utility.
After this live chat software comparison, you’ll get a better picture of what’s better for your business. Basically, provides you with a knowledge base to create, organize, and store the articles that answer your customers’ questions. Has a bot that suggests relevant articles to customers who have questions. It’s much easier if you decide to go with the Zendesk Suite, which includes Support, Chat, Talk, and Guide tools. There are two options there — Professional for $109 or Enterprise for $179 if you pay monthly. The difference between the two is that the Professional subscription lacks some things like chat widget unbranding, custom agent roles, multiple help centers, etc.
Zendesk Support has voicemail, text messages, and embedded voice, and it displays the phone number on the widget. Currently based in Albuquerque, NM, Bryce Emley holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NC State and nearly a decade of writing and editing experience. When he isn’t writing content, poetry, or creative nonfiction, he enjoys traveling, baking, playing music, reliving his barista days in his own kitchen, camping, and being bad at carpentry. Keeping this general theme in mind, I’ll dive deeper into how each software’s features compare, so you can decide which use case might best fit your needs. G2 ranks Intercom higher than Zendesk for ease of setup, and support quality—so you can expect a smooth transition, effortless onboarding, and continuous success. Whether you’re starting fresh with Intercom or migrating from Zendesk, set up is quick and easy.
When they do respond, they’re usually unhelpful or want to immediately transfer you to the sales department. While both offer a wide number of integration options, Zendesk wins the top spot in this category. Whatever you think of Intercom’s design and general user experience, you can’t deny that it outperforms all of its competitors. Everything, from the tools to the website, reflects their meticulous attention to detail. When it comes to the design and simplicity of the software for customer use, Zendesk’s interface is somewhat antiquated and cluttered, especially when it comes to customizing the chat widget.
Zendesk, like Intercom, offers multilingual language functionality. It also provides detailed reports on how each self-help article performs in your knowledge base and helps you identify how each piece can be improved further. They have a dedicated help section that provides instructions on how to set up and effectively use Intercom. What sets Zendesk apart is its user-friendly interface, customizable workflows, and scalability. It caters to a wide range of industries, particularly excelling in e-commerce, SaaS, technology, and telecommunications. It is favored by customer support, helpdesk, IT service management, and contact center teams.
These features make it suitable for businesses of all sizes, helping them streamline their support operations and enhance the overall customer experience. One of the things that sets Zendesk apart from other customer service software providers is its focus on design. The company’s products are built with an emphasis on simplicity and usability. This has helped to make Zendesk one of the most popular customer service software platforms on the market. Zendesk provides limited customer support for its basic plan users, along with costly premium assistance options.
Intercom primarily focuses on messaging but offers limited channel breadth compared to Zendesk, requiring paid add-ons for critical channels like WhatsApp. Fonseca, 51, was named as the new AC Milan manager after a successful spell at Lille, where he brought the French side to a fifth and fourth-place finish. Before that, he managed Porto, Braga, Shakhtar and AS Roma among others. With the Giallorossi, he finished fifth in his first season at the club and then seventh before Jose Mourinho replaced him in May 2021. AC Milan decided to appoint Fonseca for the football expressed by his teams so far but also for his human qualities as the club believes he can be a good match with the board and sporting director. Even though Zendesk’s site does not clearly specify the duration of the free trial, other web resources state that it lasts for 30 days, which is twice as long as Intercom’s free trial.
That means businesses seeking to enhance their customer service may find it easier to achieve their goals by opting for software specifically designed for CX. These products range from customer communication tools to a fully-fledged CRM. Zendesk boasts incredibly robust sales capabilities and security features. Today, both companies offer a broad range of customer support features, making them both strong contenders in the market. Zendesk offers more advanced automation capabilities than Intercom, which may be a deciding factor for businesses that require complex workflows. Intercom also excels in real-time chat solutions, making it a strong contender for businesses seeking dynamic customer interaction.
A help desk ticketing system allows businesses to process, manage, and track customer issues from submission to resolution. The requests are automatically organized, prioritized, tagged, categorized, and assigned to agents in a centralized dashboard. Help desks for startups can help you support your customers and employees as you grow. Zendesk also offers proactive chat functionality to its user base. It enables them to engage with visitors who are genuinely interested in their services. You get to engage with them further and get to know more about their expectations.
Get ideas on how to improve your IT service desk so you create a support loop that benefits the entire company—and your customers. Closed-source help desk apps are proprietary, meaning they don’t allow you to modify the source code like open-source software. Closed-sourced software tends to be more user-friendly, and since only the provider can access the code, it’s usually more secure.
Jira Service Management from Atlassian offers a help desk program used for project management and customer service. Featuring a self-service portal that offers customizable request forms, the software gives customers and employees alike a place to create requests, find answers, and get help. The ProProfs Live Chat Editorial Team is a passionate group of customer service experts dedicated to empowering your live chat experiences with top-notch content.
Finally, you can pay $199 per month per user for unlimited sales pipelines and advanced reporting along with other features. In-app messages and email marketing tools are two crucial features that Zendesk lacks when compared to Intercom. Intercom, on the other hand, lacks key ticketing features that are critical for large firms with a high volume of customer assistance. Zendesk’s Suite Team plan (the cheapest plan) costs $49 per user per month. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. You get multiple support channels at no extra cost with over 1000 APIs and integrations. They also offer several other features such as pre-defined responses, custom rules, and customizable online forms.
